Ghost Lights
by Alpha Flyer
Summary: In the black depths of the Delta Quadrant, not every light is a beacon - and not every swamp is made of mud.


AUTHOR'S NOTE: This was written for Photogirl1890 for the VAMB Secret Santa exchange, to her prompt for_ a story focusing on one of the holo-images from the EMH's slide show at the start of 'Nothing Human' - my preference would be the 'perilous mission to Lav'oti V' featuring Paris, the EMH, and some lower deck characters at the 'fetid mud pits of Palomar,' with a side helping of P/T optional. _

I hope she wasn't expecting a pure fluff piece – because the episode "Nothing Human" is anything but, in all other respects. Moreover, it sits in a Season 5 arc that includes "Extreme Risk," in which B'Elanna almost dies; "Once upon a Time," in which Tom almost dies; and "Timeless," in which almost everyone dies. It also takes place immediately before "Thirty Days," in which Tom almost dies (again), at the hands of Kathryn Janeway. And the season ends with "Equinox," when all the lights briefly dim.

Many thanks to my dear **Runawaymetaphor**, for challenging me to be a better writer. The cover photo is by **fksr,** via Flickr.

* * *

**Ghost Lights**

**By Alpha Flyer**

* * *

"No change in pace of deterioration. Continuing to monitor vital signs. Paris out."

Tom taps off the comm link to the Doctor, who is off with Harry on the holodeck, trying to come up with Kahless knows what bizarre new approach to Delta Quadrant health care.

_Deterioration._ Talk about a euphemism for being devoured alive.

His jaw tightens as he looks down on B'Elanna, or what is left of her to be seen. She is stretched out on the biobed, unconscious, barely breathing - almost entirely covered by the alien organism that had jumped out of containment, right here in Sickbay, and engulfed her without warning.

Damn Captain Janeway and her insistence on bringing this … this thing aboard. Starfleet regulations are pretty clear on what should and should _not_ be done, when encountering life forms in apparent distress - and while rendering aid is imperative, inviting them in for tea and cookies is not high up on the list.

Tom is admittedly not the greatest at following regs himself, but this might have been a good time for the Captain to set an example, no? Instead, with one imperial hand wave, she'd opened the door to some crab-like horror straight out of a 20th century SciFi flick.

He runs his hand gently along B'Elanna's soft forehead ridges, trying and failing to swallow the regret that is thickening in his throat.

It's only been a few weeks, following her lonely spiral into depression, that they'd started growing closer again, to the point where she would let him touch her like that. And it had taken him almost suffocating under a shit ton of benomite, and her watching _his_ supposed last words, to get to that spot.

Tom stares at the monitor for the umpteenth time, the image of the ever-descending lines burning itself into his retinas, until his eyes blur.

Doc and Harry are sure taking their time. What the hell are they doing? Interactive matrix generation isn't rocket science.

He starts pacing through Sickbay, three, four times. Maybe he should just burn some of the adrenaline – hell, who are you kidding, Paris, call it what it is: _fear - _out of his system with a hypospray?

No. Bad idea. B'Elanna needs him to stay alert.

_Distraction._ Could use some distraction.

His eyes fall on the holo-camera, sitting on the desk where the EMH had dropped it when the distress call came in. Was it really only two hours ago that they had all prayed for a red alert, just so they could get out of the Doc's interminable slide show?

Careful what you wish for, Tom Paris.

"Tell me."

The voice is almost inaudible, raspy and laboured. He is beside the biobed in a flash.

It's tempting to say something inane, like, "_You're conscious! Are you feeling any better?" _But this is B'Elanna, and all that would get him is an eye roll, if not an unflattering comment in Klingon.

"Tell you what?" he says instead.

She takes a shallow breath and wets her lips with her tongue, in an effort to shape words strong enough to escape the weight on her chest, and the suffocating tendrils that penetrate her lungs.

"Lav'oti V. _Slide._ Never mentioned … mud."

And Tom gets it, he totally does. _Distraction. _He may not be the world's gift to exobiology (or even just basic medical care), but he _can_ do comic relief.

He responds with a smile, hoping it doesn't look as forced as it feels.

"You're damn right I didn't mention the mud. Man's got to have some dignity, after all. But if you insist, and since we have nothing better to do …"

…..

_Lav'oti V - Three Days Earlier, Mid-afternoon_

"Hold still, Ensign. There is a particularly attractive bush behind you - your skin colour will provide a _very _nice contrast, especially now that the sun is out. _Sun_ being a rather loose term, of course."

Poor Golwat – just her luck, to be the one spot of bright blue, in a world painted almost exclusively in shades of yellow and brown (with the occasional splotch of grey).

Tom and his walking companion exchange a quick glance. Detailed to the away team from Voyager's planetary geosciences division, Lieutenant Mandy Chamberlin had earlier characterized the place as _still in its Mesozoic era, late Jurassic, Oxfordian age equivalent. _Which must be geo-speak for "brown," because from its sparse vegetation to the cracked soil and the occasional porous-looking rock formations, Lav'oti V is a symphony of monochrome. Heck, even the _sky_ is a shade of ochre, thanks to the system's K-class sun.

Golwat never stood a chance.

"For a compilation of photons, the Doc sure loves taking pictures," the Bolian ensign grumps a few minutes later. She shifts the strap of her container back onto the left shoulder, where it's more comfortable to carry - but "_considerably less photogenic"_, according to Ansel Adams' discerning disciple.

_Whatever happened to the 21__st__ century backpack? _ Tom wonders fleetingly. Those must have been infinitely easier to carry across rough terrain than those bulky and anti-ergonomic octagonal monstrosities that Starfleet considers standard issue. (Those things must have been procured as a result of some backroom deal involving a pack of Ferengi and a handsome 'commission', because otherwise? No rational explanation.)

Tom is not entirely unsympathetic to Golwat's plight. The number of times he himself has been ordered out of a shot, or into one - command red shoulders being apparently almost as useful as a bald Bolian head, for purposes of colour contrast - is surely running in the double digits by now.

But calling the Doc out on the basis of his photonic nature?

"Careful, Ensign." He flashes her a grin to take the sting out of his comment. "Next time you're exposed to sickbay, that _compilation of photons_ may just let you slide into a coma."

Golwat looks suitably chastised, although it's hard to tell with Bolians. She drops back a ways, presumably to sulk. The EMH, for his part, is bouncing ahead without a care, looking for new subjects, blissfully unaware of the restoration of his honour by his sometime assistant.

Chamberlin snorts, and gives Tom a sideways look.

"Get thee to a punnery, Paris. I shutter to think what Torres has to put up with on a daily basis."

Tom winces a little, but looks at her with new respect.

"You weren't supposed to notice that. I'm practicing for the next senior staff meeting. I bet Harry that I can get at least six puns past Tuvok before he notices. Golwat didn't notice. Did she?"

"She's Bolian. Their sense of humour sees everything through the lens of bodily functions."

Chamberlin shifts the container on her shoulder with a soft curse.

"Good luck with Tuvok. I had a Vulcan roommate at the Academy who was a _machine_ when it came to puns. Having a mind like an encyclopedia doesn't hurt. Plus, delivery? Tumbleweeds and dust devils."

Tom wrinkles his nose and stops in his tracks.

"What on Earth is that stench?"

Chamberlin is just beginning to raise an eyebrow at the inappropriate planetary phrasing, when a whiff hits her, too.

"Sulphur base, methane …"

Tom completes the sentence for her.

"… rotten eggs, day-old targ droppings and something uniquely Lav'oti? I assume we have arrived. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you - _the fetid mud pits of Palomar_."

Chamberlin wipes droplets of sweat off her forehead, tries to put a brave face on it.

"I expected worse, actually, based on the readings we got from the Flyer."

Marching across a landscape so thin-crusted you can't land a shuttle on it, and ending up in a geothermal latrine, is not exactly Tom's idea of a good time. He is somewhat relieved that it's not Chamberlin's, either.

He leans over to hear and whispers, "But I do see why we brought Golwat. You ever been to the john after one of the Bolians? I bet you she's immune."

Sure enough, Golwat seems completely unaffected by the maelstrom of stinks, and grimly determined to catch up now.

They crest a small hill and are treated to the sight of the Doctor, who, unburdened by containers, a sense of smell or the need to propel a heavy body across rough terrain, has bounded way ahead of them. He appears to be taking an endless series of close-ups of an equally endless number of holes filled with bubbling, roiling, stinking mud. _What fun._

"Hey Doc," Tom hollers down. "You think you could take some time out from your art and point us to the stuff we're supposed to collect here, assuming you've found it? The less time we have to spend here, the better."

The Doc pulls himself up to his full five-foot-something and sends Tom a photonic glare.

"Geysirite, Mr. Paris, is not _stuff._ It is one of the essential compounds in Cordrazine, of which you, I need not remind you, are one of the main consumers on Voyager, given your unfortunate penchant for dangerous activities."

He points at a steep slope, leading into a particularly deep mud pit.

"According to our geological expert, Lieutenant Chamberlin, it forms close to major sulfur deposits. Which makes this planet an ideal source, however much of an olfactory challenge it may represent to organics like yourself."

There's more than the usual supercilious edge in the EMH's voice, and Tom almost regrets defending him earlier.

"You see the yellow crystals in the crevice there, Mr. Paris? Right beside the sulfur deposit? Please, Lieutenant Chamberlin, do confirm to my impatient … _assistant_ that this is indeed what we seek."

It'll definitely be a while before he protects the EMH's honour again. How does Chamberlin get to be a Lieutenant, but Voyager's Chief Helmsman is relegated to _Mister_ or _assistant_?

"As for me," the Doc continues brightly, "I have photonic history to make. Imagine – the first hologram ever to create a ravishing series of holographic images, for all eternity to enjoy. There is something almost metaphysical about that, wouldn't you say?"

Tom would not.

"What? You're not going to help us collect the stuff? Why exactly did you bother to come?You're not even affected by this stink."

"Art waits for no one, Mr. Paris," the Doctor replies airily, and points his camera at a spot where a large bubble seems to form, then pop, at regular intervals. "I must try and catch this amazing natural phenomenon just as it bursts_. _But don't worry. I will do quality control on your findings before we leave, as my contribution to your endeavours."

Chamberlin, in the meantime, has started to deliver to the entirely uninterested Golwat a lengthy discourse about geothermal activity, sulfur fields, thin crusts and the like.

"We're very lucky we're so high up, here on this plateau," she says cheerfully. "This means things boil at a significantly lower temperature. If you stepped into one of those fumaroles in a place like Yellowstone or Námaskarð, you'd cook your feet."

Oh, goody.

…..

_Voyager – present time_

For a while, the sound of his voice seems to have calmed her, but now there's a blip on the monitor. B'Elanna's head lolls to the side, like that of a puppet whose strings have been cut. Some parts of the creature, burrowed into the side of her neck, move with it, pulled along like a blanket. The effect is somewhat obscene.

Tom knows he should probably be revolted than he is by the multi-pincered, pink parasite that's covering B'Elanna - but oddly, he isn't. All he sees, all he has the energy to see, is her face.

He straightens up from where he'd been half-sitting on the biobed and taps the instrument panel, hoping against hope that he's not actually seeing what is there as plain as day:

_Decreasing oxygen levels. _

_Decreasing heart rate. _

_Decreasing … everything._

And you don't have to be more than a Class Three Medic to know that if it weren't for her redundant Klingon organs, B'Elanna Torres would be dead already.

Is that why the creature picked her? Or is it just blind luck, a spot of light at the end of a very long wormhole?

It's always been like this, hasn't it, on this Ship of the Damned – those tiny little sparks of luck, blips of light in the darkness, are all that keep Voyager and her crew from being hurled into oblivion entirely.

Harry, the eternal optimist, is convinced that it's precisely those bright spots that make their journey bearable, and allow them to move on.

Tom would like to believe that, he really would. But to him, those so-called 'bright spots' Harry clings to are little more than Will-o'-the-Wisps, the phantom lights that dance through the lore of his Irish ancestors. Mischievous at best, malevolent often, they were spirits of the dead that would lure travellers into the bogs with the promise of home, written with swamp gas onto the canvas of night.

What had last week's the promise been - the quantum slipstream drive?

And now, the hope that B'Elanna might live, by grace of a redundant heart.

The doors to Sickbay slide open, and the EMH comes in with someone in tow, probably the walking encyclopaedia he and Harry had been constructing on the holodeck. Tom is far too concerned with B'Elanna's vital signs and his own morbid musings to bother looking up.

When he finally does, his stomach gives a little lurch.

_A Cardassian? _What the …

Tom hadn't spend enough time in the Maquis, really, to have seen the carnage that had driven the colonists of the DMZ to turn their back on the Federation, and many Bajorans to abandon their faith.

But then again, he didn't have to. A childhood and adolescence courtesy of the Cardassian Union's treatment of its prisoners of war had been more than he needed to know. _Owen Paris, poster child of Cardassian mercy._ Seska, of course, had been the icing on the cake, the cherry bomb on top.

That doesn't mean that Tom can't keep an open mind, of course – and he wants to, he really does. The odd Cardassians he's actually met in person, like that tailor on Deep Space Nine, had been friendly enough; maybe it's only the military types that deserve to be called 'snake"?

This xeno-biologist seems quite jovial, warm even, in a way the Doc himself could only dream of. So maybe … just maybe …

_But._

He can predict B'Elanna's reaction almost to the second, to the decibel, and to the degree Kelvin. And so, when she wakes again, whispering his name, he does his very best to get between her and the two holograms.

"Hey," he says softly, cracking another joke, trying to keep her focused on him.

Of course, the Doc is completely oblivious, going at it at full volume with his newfound partner. B'Elanna being B'Elanna, sees through Tom's screen within second.

"Who's that?"

"Relax," he says, trying to salvage what he can, from a situation he can just _feel_ is already heading in the wrong direction. "He's just a hologram, a specialist in exobiology. The Doc thinks he might be able to help you."

_Chasing will-o'-the-wisps, we are. A light in the darkness - in the form of Cardassian-shaped photons. Lucky us._

"Can't he find somebody else?"

B'Elanna's tone is somewhere between pleading and threatening.

"Apparently, this guy's the best. Besides, he's just a walking database."

_Believe it, Paris. No one else might. (Maybe Harry.)_

"Hologram or not, he's Cardassian," B'Elanna says, and it's not even a whisper anymore. Where does she find the strength? "As far as I'm concerned, they're _all_ cold-blooded killers."

Try as he will, Tom can't really argue that one, and so he says nothing. Fortunately, the Doc decides to relocate the medical discussion back to the holodeck shortly thereafter.

B'Elanna still looks agitated. The numbers on the monitor are dancing, and it's not a happy dance. Tom comes to a quick decision, and sits his long body back down on the edge of the biobed. He reaches out to what he can touch of her shoulder, the part not covered by the alien invader, and starts stroking her skin with his thumb.

"I didn't finish my story. About the mud."

…..

_Lav'oti V – Three Days Ago (About Tea Time)_

Resigned to his fate as servant to the stars of science, Tom heads to the largest of the fumaroles. Even to a layman it looks (and smells) like the most likely spot for those mineral deposits, assuming there's a correlation between probability and putridness.

A vein of crystals is, in fact, tantalizingly close to the top of the crevice. He walks around the fumarole, drops his carrier and kneels down to see whether he can reach it. Climbing in and getting closer to the fetid mud has next to no appeal; long arms, he suspects, might be an evolutionary advantage here.

Chakotay _should _have sent Ayala. The man isn't exactly a laugh riot, but he's the only one on Voyager taller than Tom, so it stands to reason his arms would be longer, too. (Plus, he comes with a shitload of carrying capacity.) But Chakotay had figured this mission for a cakewalk, perfect to give Golwat, a recent transfer to the science division, a rare outing. And _she_ has no hope in hell of reaching down that far, so now Tom is stuck being the fetcher _and_ the muscle, as well as the chauffeur. _Thanks, Commander._

It's about two meters or so to where the grey slime is churning away, and the walls look crumbly. Climbing down is not the preferred option.

He leans forward, looking for an anchor point for his feet and left hand so he can steady himself and reach further.

But the _stench_ … Oh, man.

"Existential question," he muses to no one in particular. "Should we truly be grateful that those bubbles down there are methane, rather than a full-bore geothermal boil?"

He puts a bit of a Q-lilt into his voice.

"Doth the accused preferreth a quick death by boiling, or a slow one by fart? Hmmm."

Tom leans forward a little more, can almost _feel_ a crystal brush up against his fingertips. _Damn, so close._

Golwat, who has turned up beside him, has an idea.

"Why don't you hang on to my feet, and I'll pick them off? I don't weigh much, and I don't really see what that smell is you're complaining about."

He looks up at her from his slightly twisted position and is about to say something to the effect of "_Not bad, Ensign, full props,"_ when she swings the carrier off her shoulder to set it down.

Only, it slips.

Tom watches the octagonal abomination come at him in what seems like slow motion. It hits him in the side just so … he flinches involuntarily and …

Well.

If you thought the stuff smelled bad from a few feet up, that's as nothing to having it directly in your nostrils, eyes, clothes, hair – oh, and _mouth_. Let's not forget about the mouth.

Maybe this had been a really, really bad time to say "_Shit_."

Luckily, the pit proves shallower than it looks, and only bath-warm. Did some people actually _pay_ for that sort of thing, back in the 20th century? (Probably the same people who ate raw fish and drank Chardonnay; you gotta wonder sometimes how humanity survived this far.)

Getting up is not as easy as it looks, and involves three failed attempts; the stuff is roughly the consistency of molasses and literally _sucks. _But once he manages to stand, the mud actually only goes up to his waist. Also, it's not dissolving his clothes and there don't appear to be any fanged snakes in it, so there's that.

_Always look at the bright side of life, Harry says._

Golwat is sputtering distraught apologies in a mixture of Standard and _very _colloquial Bolian that he marks down for future reference, but otherwise not much help. The Doc is staring with his mouth and eyes wide open, in an expression Tom prefers not to decipher.

Chamberlin, bless her practical self, seems to be already looking for spots where he might be able to climb out of the pit. Then again...

"Hey, you should be able to reach those crystals now, Paris!"

Tom spits copiously, trying to collect as much saliva as he can to clean out his mouth. The stuff trumps even Neelix' leola root parfait in flavour and consistency, but has probably even less nutritional value. He's just wiping the muck out of his eyes and pulling a face to get it out of his nose, when he hears the telltale _click._

_Seriously?_

"Oh, come on, Doc, is this really the time? Put that fucking thing away and get a hypospray ready, in case this shit is poisoned and I have to throw up. Which I might anyway, come to think of it."

"_Au contraire_, Mr. Paris, this is precisely the sort of human interest element that will keep future audiences riveted to their seats," the EMH assures him. "Oh, and could you please turn a little to your side? There is still a spot of red on your right sleeve, that would make a _very _nice colour contrast in all that brown."

…..

_Voyager, present time_

Tom stands up from the biobed to check B'Elanna's vitals once more.

"I thought I'd managed to destroy all those photos the next day during Gamma shift, by dousing the camera with the Eichner radiation that we were using on the Ailean plague virus. But the Doc must have downloaded _that_ one into his special collection, before I got there."

Is that a … chuckle?

Tom is just about to congratulate himself, when the Doc and Crell Moset walk back in - followed not that much later by Tabor.

And everything turns to fire and ice.

Later, Tom will swear to Harry, in a quiet moment, that he doesn't recall much detail of what followed, and honestly? He doesn't really want to. So all he remembers is a blur of sensations, the thrum of adrenaline. And the voices.

He remembers the anguish in Tabor's, and the hatred in B'Elanna's; Moset's sibilant attempts to establish a link between the phrases _unspeakable atrocities_ and _I had no choice_.

He remembers shrugging off Tuvok's cold reasoning as to why B'Elanna should be allowed to die. With Vulcans, you win a few, you lose a few - how can there be hard feelings, when none are engaged?

He remembers Chakotay's sincere resolve, in the name of 'principle,' to add B'Elanna's corpse to those already piled at the feet of Crell Moset. (Chakotay's principles, like the Captain's, are oddly malleable, and it's a good idea to keep a collection.)

He certainly remembers the Captain's joyless decision to sentence B'Elanna to life; about her reasoning, he could not have cared less and recalls nothing.

The hours after that are a blur, too; Tom is glad he has the helm to keep him steady as they approach the alien vessels. When the 'all clear' comes from Sickbay, he focuses on putting as much distance between them and Voyager as he can, in as little time as possible. No one has to tell him to _Engage engines, Warp Eight_; as far as he remembers, no one does.

Maybe some day he will pick through the bones of the debate in the ready room, spot the issues, and hopefully not choke.

But not today.

For now, Tom is content to consider the whole episode as just one more dark and deadly swamp that Voyager managed to cross. And if the souls of the dead did light the way, he is grateful to them; time will tell whether their guidance was true.

…..

Shift change brings the news that the Doc has thrown the switch on Moset, and Culhane takes the conn with a slap on Tom's shoulder_. All quiet on the Delta Front._

A few minutes later, Tom finds himself outside B'Elanna's quarters, unsure of his welcome, when the door opens and Captain Janeway stalks out. Her jaw is as tight as he has ever seen it; lips pressed together, eyes stormy and dark.

"I wouldn't go in there just now, if I were you," she growls in his general direction. "The air is pretty bad. You best just slide a note under the door and run."

She sweeps past him without another look, heading for the turbolift and clearly uninterested in another expression of gratitude. Tom follows her with his eyes as she goes, wrapped in something he can only describe as solitude. The loneliness of command?

For a moment he wonders where the Captain might find her moments of light, those things that Harry would have them all believe make their journey possible. Small scientific triumphs? Starfleet principles? A half-decent game of pool?

Safeguarding the lives of her crew? And what happens when someone rejects her gift, and opts to die?

_Where does Kathryn Janeway go, when there is nothing but darkness?_

He shudders a little and looks at B'Elanna's locked quarters again; he can smell the faint scent of Klingon incense that wafted out in Janeway's wake. Tom knows better, of course, than to knock and be told to go to Gre'thor through a closed door.

But he also knows that if ever in his own journey he's had a guiding light, this is where he will find it. And so he gently, hesitantly, punches in the access code he's had for over a year, but not used in far too long.

The door slides open.

B'Elanna is sitting on her unusually clutter-free couch, wearing a Starfleet issue tank top; there are no traces on her skin of the alien invader. She's curled in on herself, half-hidden behind tendrils of smoke. She must have disabled the environmental controls, which Tom takes as a welcome sign that she is not on a complete, all-holds-barred Klingon tear.

For a moment, they stare silently at each other across the room.

Tom is painfully aware that it should be his move, but he's just as painfully incapable of forming a coherent sentence beyond his usual, '"Hey."

She is alive against her will - there are bound to be issues.

He steels himself for her response to the intrusion, willing to take whatever B'Elanna needs to give.

There is a minute shift in her posture. Her shoulders straighten up, and she leans back against the couch. He can feel her eyes searching his face, almost as if she had been looking for something, and is checking to see whether she's found it.

Her voice, when she speaks, is hoarse.

"You never told me how you got out of that pit."


End file.
